Upgrading SAP Systems: The SES Case

Società Elettrica Sopracenerina SA (SES) is an anonymous company founded more than a century ago and deals with the supply of electricity to approximately 80,000 customers distributed over 49 Ticino Communes and 5 Municipalities of the Low Mesolcina and Calanca, for annual consumption evaluable in About 629 million kWh (year 2015).

The need to provide a technical upgrade of the system that would guarantee the new features provided by the enhancement package 7.

Propedeuticity of the business compared to another important corporate project considered strategic. This project called “payment traffic” consists in the harmonization of payment transactions in Switzerland according to ISO 20022 standard.

The IT Services Manager at SES Maurizio Bellanca answered some of our project questions.

What were the project development phases?

In order to be able to carry out this type of project efficiently and efficiently, we had to foresee a preliminary work of verification of the requirements. The standard methodology applied derives from a good experience gained in previous SAP release changes. We have defined in a timely and systematic manner the project phases and outlined the work plan that was then monitored and verified in the course of business.

During the project, compliance with SAP’s standard procedures was ensured, ensuring transparency and minimizing the risk of implementation of enhancement packages released, while transferring expertise and knowledge.

The most involved team, which was undoubtedly the one of the IT Service, was chosen from the will to reach as little as possible on business lines. The latter were involved in the test phases, but only after the preliminary assessment of the impact of changes after upgrade.

Technology upgrade has brought the expected benefits?

Certainly, in the first instance, we have been able to implement the functionality required for the implementation of the payment harmonization project under ISO 20022.

Upgrading SAP is an opportunity not only from a technological point of view but above all because it enables you to implement new developments and features that SAP makes available for new versions and can make business processes more efficient, simplifying them .
The SAP management system grows and follows the company in its natural development process. For this reason, the constant update keeps the value of the investment realized over the years.

Do you think there are any possible evolutions in the future?

There will certainly be some evolution though there are other priorities at the moment. The advantage of an enhancement package is that SAP makes available a whole host of new features that can, from time to time, generate new evolutionary projects.

We will soon look at the transition to the new SAP HANA technology, a project where it is essential to have previously installed the EHP7.

Why did you choose CST Consulting as a supplier?

CST Consulting has the skills to deal with such technology projects and as a result we have chosen it as a reliable partner for this project. The collaboration was fruitful and the positive feedback.